Confused Vesperia
by chronomasakari
Summary: Something I put together a while back right after I finished the game, just never put it up. Mainly there were some loose ends I wanted to see wrapped up and started writing my own endings to it.


The scabbard flew off the sword and it was twirled around gracefully. It was brought up and pointed at the figure. Yuri was outside the city, just south of lower quarter. "Just what I needed, I had some energy I needed to work out."

While travelling down to the river for water he had encountered a highwayman asking for a fee. Upon refusing the figure threatened and brandished his knife Upon notice Yuri dashed towards his opponent, the brown bandana and mask covered the mask of the man's face making him indistinguishable among the other bandits he had faced in his journey thus far. The bandit shuffled his feet to brace for an impact and lifted the knife aiming at the path to Yuri's face. _Nice move pal, you're 100 years too early to fight me. _  
"Because your'e so old right?"  
The memory of Estelle's words distracted him for the slighest moment, enough that the knife had scratched the tiniest portion of his Yuri's face as he side-stepped right while keeping his foward momentum. He quickly spun around and hit the man with the hilt of his sword on the back of his head and he collapsed.

Yuri laughed, "She's always distracting me, even when she's not around. Oh well she's got a more important job now."

Sometime had passed since defeating Duke and using all the apatheia in the world to avert tragedy. Things had finally begun to calm down in the world, and Yuri's journey had finally come to an end. Back at the lower quarter he lay on his bed awake and began talking to himself. "It's been too long since I've sat on this bed. Also been too long since I've washed these sheets, these smell awful." He had been impatient and restless recently when it came to housework. Such a long journey tends to do that to people after their return. But that wasn't entirely it, Yuri couldn't help but be anxious from his own lack of companions. It's not something he would've ever admitted out loud, however. He barely entertained the thought before he dismissed it as Repede non-chalantly walked through the door.

"I've gotta ask you, how do you open the door without thumbs." he asked, Repede making indication of a frown, if dogs could frown that is. Maybe that was just Yuri reading Repede's feelings and placing a frown in his mind. Companions can communicate eachother without words, especially when they've been through as much as Repede and Yuri. "You know I wonder how everyone else is doing, after that old tower fell we all sorta went out separate ways. Everyone had something to do. Karol had gone to Dahngrest to get the guild official with the union, Judith was curious at how to do it so she went with him. Rita went to the castle to continue her research there, since her lab was destroyed. Estelle's a princess, of course she's busy. And Raven..."

Raven came barging through the door interrupting, "This ol' man's ears are burning lad. I hope you were gonna say something pleasant about this one."

"Depends if you consider being a useless old man a pleasant idea." Yuri replied.

"What!? Common now, don't say such mean things, I got a dying heart ya know."

While it was true, or so everyone had thought, while apatheia had stopped working having all it's power taken, Raven kept on ticking, he went on and on like nothing had ever happened, seemingly having as much energy as ever.

"I've been thinking, how is it that you're still ticking, didn't your heart give out being powered by something that stopped working?" Yuri asked while walking up towards the door closing it

"I thought about that myself, I thought I would go right then and there but I didn't. I was at the castle-"

The door flew open, the corner nicking Yuri's forehead and in came a very familiar figure. "Raven! I know you're in here! You can't just leave in the middle of testing like that!"

"But Rita darling, you know all those needles and tests, they're bad for an ol' man's heart."

Yuri rubbing his forehead shut the door slowly, "I was just asking him about that myself"  
"Oh sorry" Rita chuckled politely as if to dismiss her barging in, "Well you probably deserved that anyway!"  
"Right. Anyway so what's with him anyway why hasn't he kicked the bucket yet? Shouldn't he see a doctor?"

"Well here's the thing, we _did_ take the power of all the apatheia in the world, we can't use it anymore, the barrier's stopped functioning and I've got my hands full just finding a replacement for that. It's not impossible with mana... but there's just not enough information to do anything with it yet, we're still trying to get something out of it. It's possible that we're going down the wrong path, because all the researchers from Aspio had experience in Apatheia, we might be treating mana too much like Apatheia, like trying to reuse formula's and all, we might not even need to use formulas at all. My lab is gone too so I have very little to work with. They gave me my own room at the castle though, I just need to break it in and create my lab all over."  
"Right so Raven..."  
"Oh right about the old man. Well his heart was made of Apatheia, and if power had been taken from it then it should've by all rights shut off at the time and he would've collapsed on the spot. But that's what doesn't make sense, I wanted to open him up and take a closer look but he screamed and ran off! You're a man aren't you!"

The color from Raven's face had all but left him, "But yer, yer terrible at even holdin' a knife. I saw you try to gut a fish once and," he gulped and stopped after seeing the fiery look on Rita's face.

"You don't want to die do you! Just let me take a look!"

Yuri interrupting their exchange, "Well it works right? So why bother, if he lives he lives, if not he doesn't, who cares anyway?"  
"Yuri my boy that's exactly... Hey what do you mean who cares if I don't!" Raven grimaced.  
Rita added, "You're right, but this guy's got the only working Apatheia in the world, as a researcher he's the only thing I can study! Alright I got an idea. You're coming with me we're leaving right now." She grabbed his ear and pulled him outside.

Yuri looked up and reluctantly followed, looking towards Repede as he lay on the floor, "Not coming? Suit yourself" As he walked out and closed the door Repede jumped onto his bed and yawned.

-----

The boat they were on docked on the desert near Yormgen, or the ruins of it anyway. Asking why they were there, Rita hadn't given a response, after the long journey she finally spoke. "Well, I had to come here because there was something I was told to come check. And if you remember when we were in the desert Raven had an unexplainable amount of energy so I wanted to use that to test the extent of his heart. Since I was bound for Yormgen's ruins anyway I figured I could kill two birds with one stone"

"But out here there's nothing you can use to inspect him, in fact you'll probably think it's too hot to even bother with Raven. "Yuri added.

"Oh everything I need is right here" she said as she pointed to her head, "I'm a genius after all, if I couldn't figure out a problem just because it was a little hot I wouldn't be able to live up to my own name! Besides there's something I wanted to show you guys, well I wanted to show everyone but everyone's so busy now a days..."  
Yuri looked at Rita and pointed out, "So basically, you had to come here, you didn't want to do it alone, so you used Raven as an excuse for us to come here so you would have company"

"Hey! That's not it at all"

Yuri smiled "Alright whatever miss genius, what is it you wanted to show us anyway?"

She pointed off towards the distance, Yormgen, or the ruins of it anyway. Phaeroh had taken them there, once the illusion of it anyway, and they had met Duke and he had destroyed the first piece of Apatheia they had gotten their hands on. Of their long journey what had happened here lingered on their minds for the longest time, never having been solved. When they had finally arrived one of the guards stationed nearby approached them.

"Are you the researcher sent from the capital?" he asked and Rita nodded.

"Oh thanks for coming, there was something the excavation crew had wanted you to see, there were bits and pieces of what you guys had called the apatheia, or at least that's what they thought it was anyway. They wanted you to confirm it and... well there's this." He handed her a very familiar box, the one they had found that contained the clear ciel crystal, the one duke destroyed in the illusion. Except the box wasn't as they had remembered, the color had faded as if it had been left out for a very long time. But it wasn't the box that the guard had meant, he opened it revealing a weathered book, a diary. The excavation team had wind of Yuri and his friend's journey, and when they found the diary they recognized an entry that described them by name. "We thought you might want to read this."

Rita was taken back, she grabbed the diary and sat down and began to read. It was Yuefan's. The one they had met in the illusionary town of Yormgen. The one that Longchi had mentioned. Yuri asked "But wasn't that a mirage or illusion? How are we written about on an age old diary, I mean the old man, maybe, I'm sure he was probably a little bit younger at that time though, with some color in his hair..."  
"Hey I know you're not referring to this old man" Raven butted in. Rita seemed to ignore the exchange though, intent on reading whatever entry she was.

Finally she looked up and pointed at an entry, "Look at this."

It talked about how a group of adventurers had came to town and how she recognized the box as something her lover Longchi was supposed to come back with. It went on even mentioned things like, "The pink-haired girl Estelle seemed so happy and relieved when she had given me the box with the crystal in it" There was no denying that's exactly what happened when the group had visited the town.


End file.
